Abcess after Radical Hysterectomy

inneedofanswers · New User Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 1 Location: Whigham GA

Well to start off with my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer almost three years ago. She had to have her right breast removed along with all of the muscle tissue and lymphnodes. She has went through Chemo and radiation twice and is still having to go every two weeks for shots and bloodwork once a month. She is 72 years old and the Doc says that she is still producing estrogen like a 17 year old.

Then there is my dad. Last year her found out that he had prostrate cancer and had to undergo surgery. By the grace of the Creator above he did not have to have Chemo or Radiation. He has made a full recovery.

Then in October of last year my wife found out that she was pregnant. In December she found out that she had an irregular papsmear that showed Carsonoma In Situ of her Cervix. In January she was admitted into the hospital and underwent a double cone biopsy on her cervix along with a cercloge installed. She was put on bed rest the remainder of the pregnancy with visits to the OB/GYN two times a week.

Then her OB/GYN decided that because of her age (36) and the other factors that were present that she needed to see a Geneology specialist. So we had to travel to another facility over an hour away four times only to find out that the baby was ok and there was a better than 90% chance that he would not have any health issues.

She carried the baby to term and gave birth by C-Section. After her six week check up she was advised that her pap-smear showed that she was now in Stage 1 Cervical Cancer. She was refered to a GYN/ONC for treatment of the cancer. He wanted to perform a Radical Hysterecotmy on her immediatley. It had only been 12 weeks since the C-Section and she had not completely healed from that and she was now looking at having another major surgery.

She was admitted into a Major Medical facility that was supposed to be the best in the area on August 30th. The doctor performed the proceedure on her and closed her up using skin-clips and Dermabond. The day after surgery her incision began to open. We brought this to the attention of both the doctor and the nursing staff. Both the doctor and the nursing staff did nothing to prevent further opening and did not give any type of post-op wound care. When she was discharged from the hospital 6 days later, the incision had opened completely (we have some really good pictures) and was still not being cared for. The doctor ordered the discharge nurse to Steri-strip the entire incision area which was from her naval to her pubic bone and sent her home with only a prescription for Pecocet, Senocot and Phenogrin (sorry if it is misspelled).

We had to return to the hospital the day after her discharge because she woke up in a large pool of blood (no exageration) and was in excrucitating pain. We contacted the doctor's office and was advised that he was in surgery and to return to the hospital, go through the ER and he would see her after surgery. We waited in the ER for 6 hours before being informed that he (the doctor) had not told anyone to have us return to the hospital nor was he coming in.

My wife made several attempts to speak to this doctor over the next couple of weeks only to speak to his nurse. My wife explained to the nurse that she was in extreme pain and that something wasn't right. She requested several times for the doctor to call her and he never did. When her incision began smelling really bad and having a puss like liquid oozing from it she decided to go back to her OB/GYN. There the nurse's were amazed that she had been left in this condition. They began treating her wound and had her coming over there twice a week for wound care.

Then her temperature dropped to 95 degrees on 09/19/07. Then the next day her temperature began to rise and after taking Tylonol with no break in the fever we broke down and called the Doctor again only to get an after hours physician who wasn't familure with my wife's case at all. She was advised to return to the hospital where the surgery was preformed or she could go to our local ER and be seen by the ER doctor. Just by luck of the draw the ER doctor at our hospital was a friend of my wife's and after we explained everthing she had been through he ordered blood work and a CT Scan of her abdomen.

The blood work came back some what normal with a slight elevation in white blood cells but the CT showed that she had formed numerous abdominal abscesses where she had the hysterctomy. The ER doctor called the oncall physician back and advised him of what the CT and blood work showed. The oncall physician stated that she needed to be admitted back into the hospital. My wife became so upset over the tought of having to go back to a facility and a doctor that almost allowed her to die that she began to have a panic attack. The ER doctor was able to work with the oncall physician at my wife's OB/GYN facility and he agreed to take her as a patient over the weekend and treat her with IV antibiotics.

She was placed in the hospital over the weekend and administered IV antibiotics. She was released on 09/23/07 and returned to the GYN/OCN the next day.

The GYN/OCN did not believe that the CT Radiologist new what he was looking at so he ordered another CT which was done on 10/04/07. The next day she receives a call from the GYN/OCN's nurse advising that they wanted her back in the hospital ASAP because the CT showed a very large abscess where her Uterus used to be. She was admitted back into the hospital and when the doctor finally came in he advised that the abscess was found to be 18 cm or bigger than a softball but smaller than a volleyball. HMMMMM now she had been trying to tell this doctor for three weeks that something wasn't right and she was in extreme pain.

So right now at this very moment she is in the hospital with a drain in her abdomen removing the fluid build up.

My wife advised me today that the doctor came in around 10:30 pm last night 10/07/07 and advised her that he would be sending her home on Tuesday with the drain still in. My wife asked if he was going to schedule Home Health to come out and take care of the fluid drainage and his response was "that is something that your husband can do".

Now this is supposed to be the best GYN/ONC in the area and this is how he treats his patients???

This doesn't even touch the horrendous experience we had with the nursing staff at the hospital where the surgery was performed.

My question is, has anyone else ever had an experience like this and was there ever any legal action taken??

Thank you

Inneedofanswers

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